Being a parent can be stressful - but it seems that some mums have been letting off a bit too much steam online.

Advertisers on parenting advice website Mumsnet have reportedly threatened to pull their adverts after they appeared on discussion forums containing swear words.

National Trust, Confused.com and Italian fashion label Bulgari were among the companies that were supposedly considering withdrawing their advertising from the site to avoid their brands being tarnished by unsavory language.

Mumsnet, which describes itself as the UK’s “most popular parenting website”, is visited by more than 12 million people every month, and makes a lot of its money from advertising.

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Parents go on the site’s hundreds of discussion forums to exchange tips on everything from the best destinations for a family holiday to how to get kids into the best schools.

But frustrated parents’ expletives are worrying the advertisers, with banner ads reportedly appearing next to posts saying “I can’t f***ing do this anymore”.

A National Trust spokesman told the Times: “We regularly monitor the external environment to ensure that our ads are being positioned alongside the right sort of content and therefore we will aim to address this issue by requesting that our ads to not appear alongside these swear words.”

We decided to have a look at what parents were saying on some of the Cambridge forums.

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In a forum titled ‘£250k - invest in Cambridge Property’, the OP [Mumsnet speak for ‘original poster’] asked what their money would buy them in the city.

One parent had this advice: “You’re not going to get anything (that isn’t dodgy as f***) very much for £250K, OP - the new developments (such as the massive station development at CB1) are all well over £300K except for the shared ownership properties.”

In a thread where a parent asked for good places to move to in Cambridgeshire, a respondent praised the diversity of her neighbourhood, with the sole exception of a woman with “an unfortunate drink problem who would scream at ‘the f***ing British” while inebriated.

And in a forum asking about what to do after becoming pregnant, one reply said: “Congratulations! Infertility is shit.”

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A reply on September 16, read: “Bugger bugger bugger. I completely forgot.”

Mumsnet’s ‘talk guidelines’ say: “It's not our policy to delete swear words (we're all adults, after all) but we do draw the line at obscenity, racist, ageist, disablist, homophobic or transphobic language, and wording that is truly beyond the pale.”

Justine Roberts, Mumsnet founder and CEO, said: "We haven't been contacted by any advertisers with any concerns about swearing on Mumsnet and we have no plans to change our policy on allowing swearing on our forums.

“Mumsnet is, after all, a site for grown-ups - somewhere people visit to get advice, support and sometimes to let off a bit of steam."

A spokesman for Confused.com said the company had no plans to “withdraw advertising from Mumsnet”, but said that each web page was considered on a case-by-case basis.

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